Development of Abutment-H pile Connection for Large Lateral Displacements of Integral Abutment Bridges

Abstract

Abutment-to-pile connection in an integral abutment bridge is vulnerable to lateral displacement induced by thermal movement of the superstructure. However, previous researches have merely focused on the connection. In order to improve the performance of the connection, new abutment-to-pile connection designs were proposed based on quasi-static nonlinear finite element model. The reinforcement detail specified in PennDOT DM4 and HSS tube were barely effective in controlling crack growing but spiral rebar effectively performed to delay crack growth as well as absorbing energy capacity. However, it was found that delaying cracking and strengthening the connection also caused the high lateral load in superstructures. Consequently, shape of HP pile were modified to introduce plastic hinge of the HP pile for reducing the lateral load in superstructures. Connections with modified HP pile significantly prevented crack propagations under the lateral displacement.